Ortega´s Police gave a few minutes to expelled Spanish aid workers to pack their bags and took them to the airport
In La Prensa, January 27, 2026
“There are still things that Spain does not yet understand,” about the reaction of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, stated a diplomatic source consulted by La Prensa.
The Police of the regime of Daniel Ortega showed up without notice at the homes of Spanish aid workers in Managua, gave them a few minutes to pack “four things”, and drove them under a police escort directly to the airport, where they forced them to leave the country immediately, La Prensa learned through sources related to the case.
According to these sources, the operations were carried out simultaneously and quickly. They did not take them to the Chipote jail, but directly to the airport, where they forced them to buy their tickets with their credit cards.
They took the cell phones of the aid workers, went through their content, and reformatted them, and demanded that they leave the country in the first flight available.
The expulsion of the aid workers happened parallel to the expulsion of the Spanish Ambassador in Nicaragua, Sergio Farré Salva, and his second in charge, Miguel Mahiques Núñez, ordered by the regime on Sunday [January 25, 2026].
The dictatorship justified the measure accusing the diplomats of “activities incompatible with their status”, a recurrent formula used by the government of Ortega to break diplomatic relations or expel foreign missions.
Reciprocity
Spain applied the principle of reciprocity to the Nicaraguan Ambassador in Madrid, Maurizio Gelli, as well as another diplomatic official whose identity was not revealed.
The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Relations publicly described the decision of the Nicaraguan regime as “unjust”, even though it avoided elaborating on the arguments on the merits which Managua used to carry out the measure.
The diplomatic crisis erupted when Farré Salva had spent just 23 days in his post, after having presented his credentials to the “co-Chancellor” Valdrack Jaentschke.
Spanish media like ABC and The Objective reported that the accusation of the regime is related to supposed contacts of the ambassador with “groups not aligned with Ortega”, in reference to meetings held with representatives of civil society and international aid.
In this context, The Objective reported that at least five people from the area of Spanish aid also were “arrested and expelled”, information that partially coincides with the data gathered by La Prensa.
Nevertheless, the sources consulted indicated that the total number of expelled aid workers would be 8 or 9, who are the representatives of the Spanish aid NGOs that are still operating in Nicaragua.
Some of these expelled aid workers not only have Spanish but also Nicaraguan nationality and have family connections in the country.
The source highlighted that the expulsion of the aid workers had not been motivated by any specific action attributable to them nor by the meeting that some recently held with the Spanish ambassador in the Spanish Embassy in Managua.
The Spanish meeting
“It is true that those people had a meeting with the ambassador some days ago, but from what I know, nothing special was said in that meeting. There was no expression against the Government beyond what had always been said in those meetings,” he stated.
For the diplomatic sources, the decision of the regime targeted deeper reasons not related to the issue of aid. “The truth is that the interpretations there are open and we still do not have the exact reason for everything that has happened in these days,” he recognized. In his judgement, “this goes higher. There is a direct reprisal for something that is higher up.”
According to his interpretation, it could be a matter of a disagreement in high level negotiations between both governments. “There is some type of negotiation on the part of the Government. I do not know if it has to do with the kids, if it has to do with someone, or with some outcome that they were negotiating and that Spain, at a certain moment, refused to accept, and therefore there was an immediate reprisal,” he pointed out, even though he clarified that he still does not have conclusive information.
La Prensa confirmed in addition that the coordinator of AECID (Spanish Agency of International Aid for Development) is still in Nicaragua.
“The pieces of the puzzle are still being put together. There are still things that even Spain does not understand. They are looking at everything that has happened in these hours, to finish putting it all together and understand what the principal motivation is for why Nicaragua has made this decision,” recounts the source consulted.
For now, there are no reports of the arrests of Nicaraguan citizens directly connected to these events.
“Beyond everything that is being said in social networks, which right now is like mixing rice and mango, the important thing is to understand whether this goes beyond a meeting of aid workers, or if there is something else beyond that. I think there is something beyond that,” he stated.
